Wounded
by chrislee
Summary: Buffy travels to LA to discuss Spike. Follows "Tenderness"


Wounded  
  
By Chrislee  
  
christie_mcdonal@hotmail.com  
  
Rated: strong R  
  
Type of Fic: angsty  
  
Comments: Sequel, sort of, to "Tenderness," post-coital Spike and Buffy and Daddy Angel  
  
  
  
Wounded  
  
It is raining when she arrives in Los Angeles. Standing in front of the Hyperion, she can feel the stabbing drops run down the knuckles of her spine. She knows she must look a sight, knows Cordelia will have some flippant remark about her appearance: "Buffy, the wet look is so over." She can almost see the arched eyebrow now.  
  
The Hyperion is so large; Buffy feels the weight of all those silent windows staring down at her. Somewhere in the depths of the hotel, a dim light burns. She wonders how he manages to feel at home here, wonders if he has created a space for himself that he feels comfortable in: stacks of antique books, an oversized chair, fireplace, velvet drapes, obviously a bed, though she doesn't try to imagine that.  
  
She puts her hand on the Hypernion's front door and gives a small push. The door slides open with a whisper and then she is standing, dripping, in the grand marble foyer.  
  
There's something odd about the place. She's never been here before, yet she senses that something is amiss- like there's been a hastily cleaned-up party. Distantly she can hear voices, but she can't make out what they're saying. Absently, she moves toward the sound. She has barely taken two steps when she hears the crying, a lusty wail signaling hunger or discomfort, but brief, indicating that its needs have been met. Two more steps and a waif-like girl with long brown hair emerges from the rooms behind the marble counter.  
  
"Hello," the girl says. "If you're needin' some help, well, I…" she stops suddenly. "Gee, you do look kinda, well, hopeless and that's well, that's sorta our motto at Angel Investigations. We help the hopeless. Do you need help?" The girl came to a breathless stop.  
  
"I need Angel," Buffy said, quietly.  
  
"Well, Angel, as in the company or do you mean Angel as in the Angel? He's a little busy right now, there's been a sort of unexpected, well, occurrence which shouldn't really be unexpected, not if you knew what sorts of things we deal with…"  
  
"You must be Fred," Buffy said.  
  
"My gosh, how did you know that? Do I know you?" Fred's voice trailed off. Buffy could almost see sudden realization cross the girl's face.  
  
"Oh." And, "Oh."  
  
"Is he here?"  
  
Fred nodded, noticing for the first time that Buffy was soaked through and looked, somehow, bruised.  
  
"You need a towel, or a blanket. I could get you a blanket," Fred said solicitously.  
  
"I need to see Angel," Buffy said with a firmness she hadn't intended.  
  
"Of course. It was silly of me…" Fred stopped. "I'll just go get him."  
  
Fred left Buffy standing in the foyer and when short seconds later she started to shiver uncontrollably, she knew Angel was standing behind her.  
  
"Buffy," he said, his voice low, barely audible.  
  
She turned to face him, felt tears sting her eyes, and crumpled to the floor.  
  
**  
  
Buffy drifted towards consciousness slowly. Her body felt stiff and uncooperative. An image of Spike flashed through her head; his mouth pressed tightly against hers as if trying to suck the very breath from her lungs. There was something she needed to remember. Spike's voice," I wasn't planning on hurting you…much." Then a sharp pain, a violation so terrible that in her sleep Buffy cried out.  
  
Cool hands smoothed back her damp hair, tucked the blankets more firmly around her shivering body.  
  
"Angel?"  
  
"It's okay. You're okay."  
  
Buffy's eyelids fluttered. She was dreaming, of course. She couldn't possibly be with Angel. She heard voices.  
  
"Angel," she said again.  
  
"No, Buffy, it's me."  
  
Buffy surfaced through the last few layers of sleep, slowly becoming aware that it was Cordelia sitting beside her, not Angel.  
  
"Look, Wesley's made you some tea. Earl Grey." Cordelia wrinkled her nose. "How 'bout some nice hot, stinky, perfumey Earl Grey tea?"  
  
Buffy sat up slowly. She ached; every joint, muscle, fibre of her body, like she'd been fighting a powerful demon. Like she'd been raped by one.  
  
Cordelia handed her the steaming mug of tea.  
  
"Where's Angel?" Buffy asked after taking a tentative sip. It did smell like perfume, but it was wonderfully soothing to her parched throat. She had sobbed in the graveyard for what seemed hours after her final confrontation with Spike.  
  
"He's…" Cordy hesitated. "Well, he's just a little busy at the moment."  
  
"Busy?" Buffy croaked.  
  
"Well, he was here earlier, y'know, checking in, but you were asleep and he had another…well, matter to attend to…so he left."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"He'll be back," Cordelia said. "Of course." She smiled brightly and leaned over to plump Buffy's pillows. Something was definitely wrong.  
  
It was at that very instant that Angel appeared in the doorway. Buffy felt the air leave her lungs and the tremble that ran up her arm was so violent that Cordy reached over to take the mug before Buffy could spill any of the hot liquid on the velour blanket.  
  
"Thanks, Cordy," Angel said. "Could you help Fred with…" he hesitated. "Could you help Fred?"  
  
"Sure," Cordelia said. She put the mug on the mahogany bedside table and without a word to Buffy, left the room. Angel closed the door softly behind her.  
  
Buffy drank in the sight of him: Oh God, she never, ever tired of the sight of him.  
  
He stood by the door, eyes never leaving her face. "Buffy," he started. "Buffy."  
  
"You said that already," Buffy said, quietly.  
  
"I thought we agreed. I thought when we met we agreed that we, that you and I…"  
  
"We agreed. We did," Buffy said. "Only, something's happened. I needed to see you."  
  
Angel moved toward her, but instead of sitting beside her on the bed, he took the chair next to it. The yawning distance was not lost on Buffy. Still even this close made Buffy's senses reel. She wondered, for an instant, if he would know, would sense what had happened.  
  
"As it turns out…"  
  
"It's about Spike…"  
  
They spoke at once, stopped at once, smiled briefly at one another.  
  
"Go ahead," Buffy said, wanting desperately to put off the inevitable.  
  
Angel leaned forward, the long muscles of his arms bunching up under his silk shirt. He winced as Buffy turned her luminous hazel eyes to him. Jesus. He was damned, no question. He couldn't even fully enjoy the new miracle in his life, not knowing how it would hurt Buffy to hear of it. He considered, briefly, not telling her at all.  
  
"I killed Spike," she said suddenly, without preamble. "Staked him." The tears in her eyes spilled over and Angel, without even thinking of the consequences, moved to the bed and gathered her into his arms.  
  
"Shhh," he whispered. He was shocked to feel how thin she'd become, how fragile. How long had it been since he'd seen her last…a month, no more than six weeks. She trembled in his arms and Angel felt whatever resolve he'd had give way. "Shhh," he said again.  
  
"Oh, Angel, everything is wrong. It's all wrong. Giles is gone. Willow is, well, she may as well be gone. Xander and Anya, well they're knee deep in issues of 'Modern Bride.' Dawn …" Buffy's voice broke again and Angel felt her arms tighten around his waist as if she were drowning and he was a life preserver.  
  
Unbelievably, Angel felt the stirrings of an erection. No matter what had happened, no matter what words they had exchanged, one fact remained: no one in Angel's whole life, and the life beyond that one, had ever moved him the way Buffy did. He had been a fool to think they could lay it to rest with one meeting. He was a fool, period.  
  
"What happened?" he said into Buffy's hair.  
  
Buffy hesitated. She ran her hands up the front of Angel's shirt, considered touching him even more intimately, wondered if it might not be worth it to go all the way, just to remove the scent of Spike from her body, even if it meant the return of Angelus.  
  
Angel caught both of Buffy's hands in one of his large ones and held them still against the place where his heart should have been beating, felt like it was just to have her close.  
  
"It's complicated," she said. "Things have been volatile between us for a while and then just…exploded."  
  
"Asshole," Angel spit out.  
  
Buffy pulled herself away from the protective strength of Angel's chest. "There's more," she whispered.  
  
He waited. A long moment passed. Buffy prayed for the courage to let the words leave her mouth but they seemed trapped there. She cleared her throat and reached up to touch Angel's smooth cheek. He placed his hand on top of hers.  
  
"Tell me," he said. "Whatever you need to tell me, just tell me…"  
  
"We…Spike and I…" Buffy's eyes filled up with tears once more.  
  
But she didn't need to go on. Angel's eyes darkened, the tenderness replaced with something dangerous. "You slept with him," he said. The venom in his voice was unmistakable.  
  
"I…"  
  
"Don't. Say. Another. Word," Angel said, heaving himself off the bed, walking purposefully to the window. Night had fallen and beyond the window, Los Angeles twinkled like an inverted sky, full of stars.  
  
"It's complicated," Buffy murmured.  
  
"Complicated?" Angel said, turning to face her. "How fucking complicated could it be?"  
  
Buffy rose unsteadily from the bed. Clad only in a t-shirt borrowed from Cordelia she padded across the cold floor to stand in front of Angel.  
  
"You have no idea, Angel. You have no idea how difficult my life has become, how out of control everything seems. You haven't been around.."  
  
"So, this is my fault? Is that what you're saying. You fucked Spike because of me? Or was it lovemaking? Was it all hearts and flowers and tender kisses?"  
  
Buffy shuddered involuntarily. Her breath seemed too loud in her ears, and images rushed through her subconscious like a fast-moving train: the fighting, the adrenalin, the force of Spike's kiss and her equally fevered response, the shock of penetration, the even bigger shock of her own orgasm.  
  
Angel grabbed Buffy's arms painfully and pulled her close. "Then, what, it was so amazing, so incredible that you killed him?"  
  
Buffy wrenched herself free of Angel's hands. "Yes, that's it. I always kill my demon lovers." Or try to kill them. She took a step backwards. "There's nothing I can say to you that will make this okay. Nothing. There's nothing I can say to myself to make it okay and, believe me, I've tried. You don't deserve this, Angel, I know. But we are finished, I thought that's what we decided."  
  
Angel swept his eyes over Buffy's tiny frame, the slim hips and tiny waist, the perfect handfuls of her breasts, up the long column of her neck marred only by a faint scar, his brand on her skin and he felt something primal stir in him. He'd understood about Parker, he'd tolerated Riley; this was beyond incomprehensible. If he'd had the chance, he would have staked Spike himself, gladly.  
  
"Do you really believe that, Buffy?"  
  
"Believe what?" Buffy, replied. "Believe that we're through, over? Oh Angel…There's just so much."  
  
"Until this moment, I don't think I realized how much I…" Angel stopped, took a step forward, reached for Buffy's hand, thumb resting on her pulse. It made him feel alive, this, just this steady drumming of her pulse under his thumb.  
  
"I don't know what I am anymore, who I am, what I'm doing. If I was honest, really honest, this isn't just a side-affect of having come back from wherever I was. This is an old wound."  
  
"A wound I gave you," Angel admitted.  
  
"No, it's self-inflicted, Angel." Buffy said, "I should never have let you go."  
  
"I should never have left you."  
  
"Water under the bridge," Buffy smiled, closing her eyes. When she opened them short moments later, Angel was peering at her intently. "In a perfect world, " she said, " this would be the part where we'd kiss and make up."  
  
Angel smiled, the clouds behind his eyes clearing for the first time since he'd guessed about her infidelity. "Too bad we don't live in a perfect world."  
  
"Yah, too bad."  
  
They stood facing each other, neither breaking contact nor asking for more, in a silence aching with promise. Angel's will was slowly eroding, the smell of her was intoxicating, the feel of her smooth skin a balm, but he dare not act on his impulse.  
  
"I should…"  
  
"I know," Buffy said, their reverie broken.  
  
"Get some sleep," Angel said. "We'll talk later."  
  
"Okay," Buffy agreed, knowing that she would slip out of the hotel as soon as he was gone, would go back to the world she no longer belonged to, would move forward without the benefit of her watcher, her mother, her friends. She had nothing to hold on to, was adrift except for the memory of this: Angel's face, beautiful beyond the telling of it.  
  
end 


End file.
